de Ravigne, a Frenchman who is in love with Cara, Miss Wade, an observant spinster, Mrs Candour, an old gossipy bat, jealous of Cara, Mr Pringle and his fiancée Jeney Jenkins and the two gay acolytes, Mr Wheatley and Mr Smith. Mr Ogden, an American business man who is in London on business, M. Marsh draws up a curious group of people. We have a classic investigation of a murder that can only have been committed by a limited number of people, the Initiates. The investigation starts right away, Alleyn accompanied by Detective-Inspector Fox, Bailey, in charge of forensic and the Yard’s surgeon. After a doctor from the attendance confirms Cara’s death, Nigel rings Roderick Alleyn, Chief Detective-Inspector at Scotland Yard.

Nigel Bathgate, who lives nearby, was in the church when it happened. … when poor Cara Quayne, who was in religious extasy and about to become the Chosen Vessel, drinks from the cup and drops dead. Come with me into the Oneness of the Spirit.

‘Now the door is open, now burns the flame of ecstasy. The church has Initiates and two acolytes, like adult altar boys. The priest of the cult is Mr Garnett, self-proclaimed Father. No country manor or seaside resort here, but the House of the Sacred Flame, a sect located in Knocklatchers Row, London. To be honest, I didn’t know that Marsh was from New Zealand.ĭeath in Ecstasy is a whodunnit but the setting is not a classic one. I wanted to read a book by Marsh something I hadn’t done since my years of crime binge-reading in my teens. I picked Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh for Kim’s Southern Cross Crime Month. Death in Ecstasy by Ngaio Marsh (1936) French title: Initiation à la mort (First translation) and Mort en extase (second translation)